COVID-19 claimed 55 lives and infected 3,027 more people in the past 24 hours ending 8:00am Tuesday in Bangladesh.

As of July 7, death toll from the highly infectious viral disease hits 2,151 and infections reach 1,68,645 in the country, said Nasima Sultana, additional director general of Directorate General of Health Services, at the daily online bulletin on the COVID-19 situation.

She also said that 13,173 samples were tested across the country in the past 24 hours.  Bangladesh confirmed the first COVID-19 cases on March 8 and the first death on March 18.

The country is now in the 18th week of infections and passed the 122nd day of infections on Tuesday.

The number of deaths and infections from the novel coronavirus increased manifold in recent weeks. In the 17th week, 25,701 people were found COVID-19 positive while 302 patients died.

In the 16th week, 25,203 tested positive for COVID-19 and 270 died. In the 15th week, 24,396 new cases were identified and 286 people died.

In the 14th week, 21,353 people were detected with the novel coronavirus infection and 293 died.

In the 13th week, 236 deaths and 18,418 infections were recorded, while it was 12,530 infections and 158 deaths in 12th week, 11,083 infections and 138 deaths in 11th week and 7,225 infections and 100 deaths in the 10th week.

The number of infection had started increasing from the 10th week after the government eased lockdown by reopening markets, shopping malls and factories.

In the ninth week, the number of infections was 4,980 following 29 deaths, and 3,792 infections following 35 deaths in the eighth week.

The government further eased restrictions on public movement on May 31. Since then, the rate of infections has increased to over 20 per cent.

Nasima Sultana said that among the 55 new deaths, 46 were males and nine were females.

Among them, one was in 11-20 years, two in 31-40 years, six in 41-50 years, 18 in 51-60 years, 21 in 61-70 years, six in 71-80 years and one was above 81 years age groups.

Nasima said that 51.33 per cent of deaths were reported in Dhaka, 25.89 per cent in Chattogram, 4.97 per cent in Rajshahi, 4.51 per cent in Khulna, 4.23 per cent in Sylhet, 3.63 per cent in Barishal, 3.02 per cent in Rangpur and 2.42 per cent in Mymensingh divisions.

On Tuesday, 16,873 suspected patients were in isolation and 63,441 were in quarantine.

Besides, 1,953 patients were declared recovered in the past 24 hours. So far, 78,102 patients were declared recovered.